Top 12 Technological Devices for Students with Disabilities
This present century is the era of inventions and technology. From the wristwatch we wear to the mobiles we use are all technology-based. So, in the current era, we cannot imagine our life without technology.
As we are seeing the technology is providing so many benefits to the people. Nowadays there are a number of assistive digital devices that help the difficult students in various ways. The assistive technology for the disabled students helps the students to harness their abilities and mitigating their learning deficits. Let’s see which are the assistive learning tools for the students with disabilities –
1. Reading Guides –
This is the best innovative tool because it helps students who are having vision problems. The students who are not able to see clearly or who feel trouble tracking visual things can use reading guides. These reading guides use plastic strip which helps in blocking out the neighboring words of the writing while highlighting the words which the students are reading. This plastic strip moves as the student proceeds to read further.
2. Audiobooks –
As the name itself says, audiobooks are pre-recording tools that help to feed the needed information related to the particular subject the students are studying. Audiobooks are available in different forms like CDs, audio cassettes, MP3s. The students can make recordings related to different subjects and topics by using audiobooks.
3. Timers –
This tool is helpful for the children who find difficulty to keep up the pace with themselves or who find it hard for a transition of one task to another. The teachers or the parents can tie this device in the hands of children and the children can help themselves in knowing when to commence a new task such as when to have breakfast or when to go for a walk.
4. Text to Speech –
The students who are suffering from dyslexia, learning difficulties, blindness, visual problems can benefit a lot from this technical tool. Some students feel problematic reading the standard print texts, so the “text to speech” tool can be used to overcome these deficiencies. The teachers and parents can make use of this tool to foster the learning abilities of the children.
5. Alternative Keyboards –
These keyboards are designed to help the children facing problems with typing. A number of academic tasks such as assignment writings are done by taking assistance from Assignment Help and by doing typing. So, the students who face adversities typing on the keyboards but they can make use of alternative keyboards. The alternative keyboards have groups of keys that are colored specifically to boost the alphabet understanding of the keyboards also these keyboards use the graphics for comprehension which helps the students with typing difficulties to write faster and in an easy way.
6. FM listening systems –
FM listening systems help the students who have a hearing as well a language processing problems. Maybe some people are not aware of the benefits of FMs (The Frequency Modulation systems) and the benefits of it. Amplification is needed in the classrooms to foster the learning systems among the students who have hearing problems.
\The teachers can use microphones with the FM listening systems that later broadcast to speakers present in the classrooms. This process will help the students to solve their auditory problems. If there are not many people in the classrooms who have hearing problems, then the students with problems can wear personal earphones. This will help the students to easily understand the lessons their teachers are imparting them.
7. Graphic organizers –
This tool is effective for students who have organizational problems. This tool helps in planning and organizing things in different categories. These Graphic organizers help in mapping out the ideas and thoughts into reality.
8. Writing Supports –
The students who confront problems with writing, then the writing supports such as Speech recognition software and Word prediction software can be used by them. Word prediction and speech recognition software is installed in the phones too which the people use for typing words or translating the sentences. The pupils speak out their thoughts which the speech recognition software interprets and write in words. So, writing software overcome the writing difficulties of the students in a great manner.
9. Stop Breathe and think –
This is the best smartphone tool the students can sue who feel depressed and tensed sometimes. This tool will help them in the best way to overcome their tensions and worries.
10. Voice Dream reader –
For the students who have reading disabilities or who have problems like ADD/ADDHD, Voice dream reader is an effective tool. Voice dream reader highlights the texts which the students want to read and this helps them in overcoming their reading disabilities.
11. Sip and Puff Systems –
This tool is very helpful for students who have motor skills problems such as paralysis or fine motor skill abilities. This device works as a joystick because if the students face problems using hands typing something on the keyboard, then the students can use the Sin and Puff systems to have control of computers, mobiles, or other technological devices.
12. Ghotit–
Ghotit is a tool that is specially designed for students who have problems like dyslexia or other learning disorders. This tool provides personalized suggestions for grammatical and spelling errors. It also includes a specialized dictionary for the students to quickly lookup a word.
So, these are some of the best and effective tools for learning for students with disabilities. Thanks to assistive digital technology which has made this thing possible. While these digital devices are significantly benignant to the disabled students, it is very essential to have regular check-ups to see if the pupils are gaining the striking benefits out of it or not.